The N.C. Court of Appeals has denied again Pinewild residents' appeal of their annexation by Pinehurst.

Annexation opponents had asked the appeals to rehear its case. A three-judge panel of the appeals court had unanimously denied Pinewild's claims.

They will now ask the state Supreme Court to review the case, according to John and Lydia Boesch, who formed a group called StTOP, Stop the Taking of Pinewild. An appeal to the Supreme Court is not automatic because of the unanimous ruling by the appeals court.

Attorney Robert E. Hornik represented the Pinewild Project. Michael Newman, Anthony Fox, and Benjamin Sullivan represented the village of Pinehurst.

Pinewild filed a petition Aug. 24 asking the appeals court to rehear the case. The court denied the petition Wednesday, according to an order entered by John H. Connell as clerk of the N.C. Court of Appeals. Connell certified the order to the Clerk of the Superior Court, Moore County.

"We believe in the rule of law," Lydia Boesch said in a telephone interview Thursday morning." We believed the Court of Appeals overlooked something significant so we asked for a rehearing. We were told by an attorney in Raleigh -- a prominent attorney in Raleigh -- that not even Oliver Wendell Holmes could have gotten a rehearing."

They are not giving up. Their next step will be to ask the N.C. Supreme Court for a "discretionary review" of the appeals court's original denial.

For more on this story, see Friday's edition of The Pilot.